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Stonehenge may have been built to unite early British farming communities. Experts believe monument had a political purpose as it was created with rocks from all corners of ancient Britain.

27 12 2024

Recent findings show that Stonehenge’s stones came from all over Britain – and this offers clues to the monument’s purpose, say archaeologists

**A symbol of British unity? Wiltshire’s famous stone circle is one of the world’s most iconic historic sites and a British cultural icon – but its intended purpose has long divided academics**

Stonehenge may have been erected explicitly to unite early farming communities across the island of Britain at a time of cultural stress, argues Mike Parker Pearson, professor of British later prehistory at University College London – and the altar stone may have been taken from a distant Scottish monument as a gift or marker of political alliance.

While the structure is unique for many reasons – including its extensive stone-dressing and that it has lintels – no other monument in Britain or Ireland incorporates stones that were brought such huge distances, Parker Pearson writes in a forthcoming paper in the journal Archaeology International. “Stonehenge stands out in being a material and monumental microcosm of the entirety of the British Isles.”

As such, we should consider Stonehenge to be a political monument as much as a religious one, Parker Pearson said. “It’s not a temple – that has been a major stumbling block for hundreds of years. It’s not a calendar, and it’s not an observatory.” The structure’s famous alignment to the winter and summer solstices echoes earlier constructions such as Newgrange in the Boyne valley in Ireland, but may not be its main purpose, he said.

“I think we’ve just not been looking at Stonehenge in the right way. You really have to look at all of it to work out what they’re doing. They’re constructing a monument that is expressing the permanence of particular aspects in their world.”

The altar stone is often overlooked by visitors to Stonehenge because it lies flat and partly obscured by a huge fallen sarsen. It was long assumed that it had also fallen, said Parker Pearson – yet north-east Scotland is home to multiple circles in which the stones are purposely laid flat.

“Given what we now know about where it’s from, it seems all the more likely that it was deliberately set as a recumbent stone,” he said, adding that it is “highly likely” that the altar stone had been part of an earlier Scottish monument. “These stones are not just plucked out of anywhere.”

With Orkney having been ruled out as a potential origin, other potential sites or origin are now being examined. “I think we’ll wait and see. It’s very exciting,” he said.

Archaeologists believe the altar stone may have been installed around 2500BCE, about the time Stonehenge was being remodelled from its original form.

Visitors celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge, but the theory that the site was a solar calendar has been superseded by suggestions that it was built for political purposes

This was a period of cultural change in Britain amid new arrivals from mainland Europe. “There’s obviously some kind of interaction – you might call it first contact,” said Parker Pearson. “That is the moment that Stonehenge is built, and I wonder if it is that moment of contact that serves, in whatever way, as the catalyst for this really impressive second stage of Stonehenge. It’s an attempt to assert unity, quite possibly integrating the newcomers – or not.”

Ultimately, however, “it doesn’t succeed” – given genetic research shows the incoming “beaker people” would largely displace the earlier neolithic populations. “That said, Stonehenge is adopted [as a monument] by those beaker-using people whose descendants become the dominant population of Britain,” said Parker Pearson.

“So despite the change in population, Stonehenge continues to exert its significance in the wider world.”

RELEVANT LINKS:
Stonehenge may have been built to unite early British farming communities – Archeology News
Stonehenge may have been erected to unite early British farming communities, research finds – The Guardian
Stonehenge may have been built to unify people of ancient Britain – NEW SCIENTIST
Tours of Stonehenge with local guided experts – STONEHENGE GUIDED TOURS
Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years – as scientists finally crack why the mysterious monument was built – DAILY MAIL
Stonehenge built to unite native Britons after influx of European migrants, researchers suggest – THE TELEGRAPH
Stonehenge Guided Landscape Tours – STONEHENGE TOUR COMPANY
Stonehenge Equinox and Solstice Tours – SOLSTICE EVENTS U.K

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Stonehenge: Tunnel Vision.

12 04 2024

In December 2014 the then coalition UK Government announced to great fanfare that the decades long saga of the on-again-off-again A303 Stonehenge Tunnel project would be revived once more.

The sound of zombie horses attempting the crawl away from yet another flogging pervaded the World Heritage Site, as first Deputy Prime Minister Clegg then Prime Minister Cameron descended on Stonehenge accompanied by the usual press, TV and English Heritage top brass.

A previous version of the project, estimated at £400M, had been cancelled several years earlier by a Government of a different colour on the basis of the cost, so it was somewhat surprising to learn that its reanimated corpse was now expected to require an eye-watering £1.7B – £2.5B.

To be fair, according to the plan this time the tunnel will be fully bored rather than cut-and-cover and will be somewhat longer. Not long enough, mind you, to go the full distance from the eastern edge of the World Heritage Site all the way to the western edge.

Instead, it will put its portals in the ground well inside the area of Outstanding Universal Value, obliterating whatever might be in the way.

A brand new dual carriageway will run from the western portal across 1k of farmland, sunk into a trench around 9m deep and 50m wide, to a new junction with the A360 at Longbarrow Roundabout.

At the eastern portal, the new dual carriageway will emerge to soar over the current A303/A345 junction at Countess Roundabout on a 10m high flyover, bringing 60mph HGV traffic noise to the delighted locals.

Almost 10 years on from the announcement, here’s where we are.

After an Enquiry in Public (where the independent Examiners decided against the whole idea), a doleful procession of vacant-eyed Secretaries of State for Transport (some of whom lasted less than 2 months in the job), a determination by one of them to approve the scheme’s Development Consent Order despite UNESCO’s and many others’ misgivings, a Judicial Review into that decision which found the Sec. of State had acted “irrationally” in doing so, then a “re-determination” of the application by a subsequent incumbent which again gave approval, and a further legal challenge (recently lost by anti-tunnel campaigners), we are now awaiting an impending appeal against that ruling.

Over a quarter of a million people have signed petitions against the scheme, crowdfunding an expensive ongoing legal process to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

UNESCO have threatened that Stonehenge World Heritage Site may be placed on the World Heritage in Danger register (a precursor to delisting) if the scheme goes ahead in its present form.

In the event that the tunnel does get built – estimated costs are now above £3B, and look likely to rise even more over the 5 years the build is optimistically slated to take – one certain outcome is that the casual view of a 4,500 year old global icon of prehistory from the A303 will be lost forever.

From being something freely glimpsed in the magnificent early dawn light surrounded by mist as you crest King Barrow Ridge making your way westwards, or appearing unexpectedly nearby, glowing rose-golden in the rays of the setting Sun as you head past it eastwards, it will become an experience only available to those who are either willing and able to pay the ever-increasing entrance fee or are lucky enough to be capable of walking the couple of miles from the nearest available parking or bus stop.

Meanwhile Stonehenge looks on impassively, perhaps whispering to those who will listen that humanity’s obsession with getting to the next traffic bottleneck a whole 8 minutes faster really may not be worth the cultural, let alone the financial, cost in the long run.